March 12, 2010

In the mid-1970s, when Gallup started polling on the issue, adults aged 18 to 29 and 30 to 49 were the most supportive of legal abortion under any circumstances, and those 65 and older the least, with 50- to 64-year-olds falling in between. That pattern continued through the late 1990s. Since 2000, however, all age groups with the exception of seniors have shown similar levels of support for broadly legal abortion....

In the most recent period, from 2005 to 2009, the majority of all age groups favored the middle "legal only under certain circumstances" position. However, there was some differentiation in support for the more liberal abortion view, as roughly a quarter of adults aged 18 to 29, 30 to 49, and 50 to 64 -- versus 16% of seniors -- believed abortion should be legal under any circumstances.

At the same time, young adults were slightly more likely than all other age groups, including seniors, to say abortion should be illegal in all circumstances.

Why this new trend? It could be that young people are influenced by their parents, and parents who oppose abortion have been having more children, especially in the post-Roe period — when the 18 to 29 year olds were born.

89 comments:

It could be that young people are influenced by their parents, and parents who oppose abortion have been having more children, especially in the post-Roe period — when the 18 to 29 year olds were born.

Parents have a strong influence on a child's attitudes about abortion. Women (and men) who are pro-abortion have fewer children. Ergo, over time the level of support for abortion among young people will decrease.

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal has postulated the Roe-effect numerous times.

Just as pictures of cute polar bears influence people on the global warming debate, the fantastic new technology that can show pictures of babies in the womb erode the meme of abortion is simply a reproductive health procedure.

It could be all those talking baby commercials, part of the vegan/animal rights trend, or maybe an outgrowth of our idealization of childhood.

It could also be an unintended consequence of liberal indoctrination. Now that people expect government to be more involved in their lives, with rules for everything, why shouldn't it control what happens in your womb?

I would say this is a consistent extension of an interest in life-oriented causes. It is cognitively dissonant to be pacifist, environmentalist, anti-capital punishment, etc. and support abortion. This isn't to say cognitive dissonance isn't possible or even popular, but such dissonance does tend to shift positions over time.

There's also, I think, the rather widespread understanding of so, so many options to choose from to prevent pregnancy. The idea of abortion as birth control is abhorrent to an increasing many.

I would also suggest this is a result of the changing tone of much of the anti-abortion opposition over the last decade or so. It really has become more 'pro-life' than anti-abortion, -ists, -ers.

It's also probable that young people, who tend to be unforgiving of human failings and hypersensitive to hypocrisy do notice when pro-abortion arguments center on them as helpless victims of their own stupidity, and don't particularly see the need for abortion as birth control when contraceptives are so available.

But my primary working theory is that young people are rejecting the argument of babies as horrid, destructive, life limiting punishments that have to be gotten rid of on account that they started hearing this when they were absolutely dependent children and thus in the same category of horrid, destructive, life limiting punishments on adults. And they are hearing this no matter what the attitude of their parents.

I think it's deeper than that. A lot of you boomers are politically wedded to abortion, the way East German political functionaries were wedded to their version of communism. It's religious, really, and you just can't let it go.

Younger people are able to look at abortion without the politics attached. After all, what politics is there? In their view, women are equal in every way if not the chosen gender. Without the strange gender politics attached, abortion is just the destruction of a fetus which is in the process of becoming or already is a human life.

Furthermore, as technology increases (and it always does), it will become harder and harder for anyone to support abortion.

Technology has made opposition to the death penalty, based on the risk of executing the wrong person, almost moot. Absent outright fraud, we can be almost 100% assured of many people's guilt because of DNA and other technological evidence.

A similar explanation exists for this poll result.

In the past, women had limited access to birth control. Pregnancies could easily occur to the most careful of women if they engaged in any kind of sexual activity. The problem was that there was an incredible social stigma attached to a premarital pregnancy that it drove so many women to extreme lengths to avoid that stigma.

Now the stigma is almost evaporated and with it the strongest reason for the legalization of abortion.

Birth control is widely available and inexpensive. Failure to use birth control is clearly the fault of only two people (absent rape) and not the child's fault.

The Supreme Court in its two abortion decisions, Roe and Casey, avoided the question of balance of the rights of the child against the rights of the mother, lamely saying it was above their pay grade to delve into that matter.

The absence of the social stigma and the ease of the prevention of pregnancy makes it high time for the court to start examining the balance of rights.

Who has the greater blame in a woman getting pregnant, the parents or the child? It is getting harder for Americans to justify the failure to even consider this rights/responsibility balance.

Also, the stories of back alley abortions are no longer personal experiences.

When was the last time a woman in the movies or on television had an abortion.

On the other side, there's a lot of single mothers on both, who acknowledge the difficulties but find support in community and celebration about their baby.

There's just a lot of positive press for having children. Baby boomers saw their mothers as being limited by children, younger generations see their lives enriched by such. Society is also a lot more conducive and helpful to mothers, single or otherwise.

Skyler -- A friend sent me a really interesting death penalty piece from awhile ago. It was very compelling. The gist of it was that there was this guy who was found guilty of an arson that killed his young daughters. He was executed. In retrospect, the evidence that he didn't do it and didn't get a fair trial was overwhelming.

Anyway, not to turn this into a death penalty thread, but the takeaway is that state courts pretty much suck in a lot of places and allowing the death penalty is procedurally unfair to a defendant under current law.

Advances in ultrasound technology and science's understanding of fetal development. The whole "blob of cells" argument is harder to make when you've got scientific proof to the contrary within an astonishingly short time post-conception.

I'd say that this trend is the result of some combination of all of the reasons suggested here.

A more interesting question (to me, at least): Does this continue, or does it level off? Will we find that, perhaps, the grandchildren of those who are children now staring legalized abortion with the same incomprehension that my generation (80's kids) look at Jim Crow?

@madisonman "It could be they don't know someone who has died from an illegal abortion."

very doubtful, since very few before Roe would have known someone who died from an illegal abortion in the first place

"For 1972, the last full year before Roe, the federal Centers for Disease Control reported that 39 women died due to illegal abortion. (The death total for all abortions, including legal ones, was 88.) "

"Also, the stories of back alley abortions are no longer personal experiences."

You know, I never really saw that as in any way a compelling argument. If I accept the idea that abortion is taking a life (which I personally do), and therefore, morally reprehensible, yes, I don't want someone who tries to do it to come to a bad end, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it, either. I'm gonna be more sorry about the baby she and the "doc" took with her. - Lyssa

Because they no longer buy into the absurdity of the lie that we are speaking only about a "blob of tissue."

They know, both intellectually, as a matter of science and reason, and in their heart, that the entity in the womb is (a) alive, (b) human, (c) a being who is separate from the mother, in short, a living human being. They know that abortion is the killing of innocent human life, notwithstanding the intellectually corrupt and grossly dishonest dictate of Roe to the contrary.

I'm 30, educated, so I'm familiar with a lot of women who would be prime abortion-getters, I would say.

I've known several women who've had less than ideal pregnancies. I know dozens of women on birth control (including myself). I've known one women who's had an abortion. One.

(Obviously, I probably know more women than that who have, but my point is, they keep it silent. It's definitely an item of shame. That one person told me specifically, in some measure of confidence. I don't know anyone who would just talk about it in conversation like we do our pills/shots/patches.)

Abortion is the signature issue of the Democrats. They are in love with abortion so much, they are willing to scuttle their health care nationalization bill if it doesn't fund "a woman's right to choose".

Therefore, it makes sense that only Democrats should have abortions. And I think they should have abortions as frequently as possible. In fact, why not have federal subsidies for Democrat abortions? The world would be a better place.

Abortion is a thorny issue. What if you have a baby that your doctor is pretty sure will be dead on arrival, or will be very unlikely to live for more than a few days, or will result in the death of the mother during pregnancy?

On the other hand, you shouldn't be able to kill a healthy baby just to make your life easier.

A more interesting question (to me, at least): Does this continue, or does it level off? Will we find that, perhaps, the grandchildren of those who are children now staring legalized abortion with the same incomprehension that my generation (80's kids) look at Jim Crow?

Similarly:

I sometimes wonder if in the distant future abortion will be regarded the way we presently regard ritual human sacrifice- as a barbaric practice performed by ignorant, primitive people. What would such people, and their society be like?

Or perhaps we go another route- to where the value of an individual life has been reduced to the point where people have become interchangeable cogs in the machinery of a perfectly functioning society; and routine abortion has become an acceptable part of natural selection towards that end.

There are other alternatives to be sure, but these two intrigue me the most.

Hate to tell everybody, but the parents, who set an example for them, of all these kids who don't support abortion are Baby Boomers. Most of them are not left wing idiots like Pelosi Galore and The Zero, but have a lot more in common with Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. Boomers, for those who weren't paying attention, were the true believers of the Reagan Revolution and are the core of the Tea Party movement.

Those who raise James Taranto's name are on the money. His thesis, that kids inherit their parents' values and, since most lefty parents either aborted their kids or limited themselves to one or two (they all read "The Population Bomb" before "Earth in the Balance") while the more Conservative families had three or four (or five or six), demographics is on the side of the anti-abortion crowd.

The absolute heartlessness of the feminists is a real turn off, also.

Another point here is that a lot of women have died from legal abortions, thanks to the feminists and doctors looking to make a quick buck. Most abortion mills are allowed to run under extremely lax medical standards to the point where some of them, particularly in NYC, had to be shut down after enough women died from infections.

The fact which has come out recently that Planned Parenthood "clinics" are only interested in performing abortions and slant all their "counseling" in that direction without ever mentioning a chance to see ultrasounds or the possibilities of adoption is also tilting things.

Young people are more internet savvy and are less likely to get their opinions from mainstream media. The sharp drop in support for abortion "under any circumstances" (from 36% to 24%) coincides with the rise of the internet. The media has censored images of aborted babies for decades. Now people just have to photo-google "late term abortion" and see the evidence. And I have to think reading the Carhart opinions will create future generations of pro-life attorneys who are appalled, too.

An oopsie pregnancy is a shame and a tragedy only for upper middle class and rich kids. There's a lot of pressure and coercion in those situations.

Poorer people don't have much stuff in this world and their most precious resource is people.(If you don't understand this, please read Understanding the Framework of Poverty by Ruby Payne.)

Boomer women thought they'd achieve some sort of nirvana with their careers and wealth and self fulfillment outside the home. Their latchkey kids might think differently about this. They value family more and more younger women want to stay home with their children.

The anti-capital punishment activities are exposed to the Catholic Seamless Garment argument. If we object to the execution of guilty life that "deserves it," we are also pro-life to our smallest and most vulnerable brothers and sisters. If even a murderer's life is inviolably sacred, so is an innocent zygote's....cont'd

...Any thoughtful person born after 1973 knows a huge part of their peer group is missing.

I was an accident, born four years before abortion became legal in the country of my birth (not the USA). But I was a happy accident, welcomed and loved by my parents--people of faith who accepted that God had something different in mind than they did when it came to family size. If they wanted to off me, they could have (even though it wasn't legal yet). I am grateful they decided otherwise.

So I guess I feel the tenuousness of my existence. This feeling is true for every American child born after Roe whether they perceive it or not.

I have religious reasons to believe that no child is an accident or a tragedy.

However, I can think about this even apart from any religious belief or thought. I guess I'm simpatico with Feminists for Life.

Anytime someone tells me she is pregnant, I say congratulations. She might be catching hell from every quarter and doesn't need anyone else piling on. Being resourceful in helping her get what she needs to choose life, might in fact save a life.

I don't think procedures that can be called abortions should be criminalized. I've had an abortion (on Halloween, no less) and I've never been pregnant. LOL I had the hospital staff cracking up at that.

The same procedure that can be called abortion is also used to treat incomplete miscarriage. One of my besties is a pro-life activist and was horrified to see her hospital bill/insurance EOB that made it look like she had an abortion.

My sis had an ectopic pregnancy. Even Catholics have no qualms with an abortion in this case. Principle of double effect. The primary intention is the treatment of a condition threatening the life of the mother; the abortion of the baby is not intended but an avoidable secondary consequence.

Whatever bill passes, I hope it covers non-elective procedures that are required for diagnosis or treatment of a medical condition. Nothing is more hateful to me than a woman losing a child she wants through miscarriage and needing a D&C to finish the process--what grief--then being presented with a bill of a few thousand dollars that ObamaCare won't cover that she'll have to pay. How horrifying.

Anyone who goes on about abortion as birth control cannot ignore the fact that the methods of birth control they favor frequently fail. One of my besties has three children conceived on the Pill. My other bestie--four of her five children were conceived while she layered multiple methods of birth control--everything but hermetically sealing herself in inch-thick latex. She's just a fertile Myrtle.

You would be horrified to find out that I sense where I am in my cycle and have never been pregnant--through avoiding sex during my fertile time. Moot point now, all my bits and pieces are gone.

OK TMI but you can't open this can of worms without dealing with the worms.

Why are they trending away? Three reasons that I'm aware of being both an Xer and a father of a Millennial. First, the argument against abortion can be made completely separate from theology. Second, even my most educated, stridently pro-choice friends cede that the pro-life side has a better argument and that the choice side mostly relies on defining person hood in a counter-intuitive way. Third, the younger people in the country, especially on the right, are getting sick and tired of the same social battles being waged over and over again, freezing political progress of almost any kind because of this issue.

Not that the issue isn't important, mind you, but I think the polarizing effect it's had on the political climate is a huge turnoff to younger-than-boomers, who would like to see other things addressed without drawing battle lines around abortion constantly.

For the record, I'm pro-life as attempts to rationalize personhood by pro-choice philosophers seems to fall short of the mark for me. Reality intrudes, though, and it strikes me that the djinni is out of the bottle on this one. Advancing technology will mostly make it a non-issue for the most part, but I believe that the best the pro-lifers can hope for is a ban on abortions after the first trimester excepting very well defined circumstances.

Making almost all abortion illegal seems to me a move to the left in any case, as I view things on a tyranny to anarchy spectrum, left to right.

Also, young people today have seen that delaying childbearing can mean more difficulty conceiving. In the news, they see desperate barren women, problems with surrogates, women who abort for convenience, women who carry "defective" fetuses to term and find they're perfect, etc.

Madison Man wrote:"It could be they don't know someone who has died from an illegal abortion."

Most people don't. Between the introduction of penicillin and roe v wade, deaths from illegal abortions ranged from 400 in a year (when penicillin use was introduced) to 39. Deaths from illegal abortions in the last 30-some years have presumably continued to drop.

Part of this is probably demographic. Almost half of US babies are born to Hispanics, who, while they vote Democrat, tend to be Catholic and quite a bit more socially conservative than mainstream Democrats.

"For 1972, the last full year before Roe, the federal Centers for Disease Control reported that 39 women died due to illegal abortion. (The death total for all abortions, including legal ones, was 88.) "

I thought I was being slightly sarcastic when I wrote my second comment on this thread-

Stupak in an interview with Costa of The National Review:

“If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”

Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned parenthood) wrote: "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members"and“The future program [of Planned Parenthood] should center around more education in the field through the work of a professional Negro worker, because those of us who believe that the benefits of Planned Parenthood as a vital key to the elimination of human waste must reach the entire population."

And it was successful. According to the CDC:"55% of women who obtained legal induced abortions were known to be white, 35% were black [of a 12% population], and 7% were of other races.... The abortion ratio for black women (503 per 1,000 live births) was 3.0 times the ratio for white women (167 per 1,000 live births). ...The abortion rate for black women (30 per 1,000 women) was 3.1 times the rate for white women (10 per 1,000 women)...."

I think its just that scientific advances have shown things like beating hearts and facial formation and identified organs at earlier and earlier points in the development of a fetus, and so people see the fetus as a little person as opposed to some kind of growth that is only human-like after 3+ months...

Advances in ultrasound technology and science's understanding of fetal development. The whole "blob of cells" argument is harder to make when you've got scientific proof to the contrary within an astonishingly short time post-conception.

Seriously. Have you ever seen one of those special ultrasounds that are 2d or whatever? At this point, we just know too much about what develops when. (I just saw my cousins' ultrasounds from one of those babyviews places a few weeks ago. It was amazing!)

I think "choice" went over well before because it was essentially true. And abortion was coupled with birth control and marital rape and a whole lot of bad.

But what is going on is... people can't accept victory. No one can say success.

If the goal is for women to control their reproduction, then we're there.

But without accepting that, we end up with this enormous logical disconnect where the rhetoric embeds the notion that someone, somewhere, is being forced to be a brood mare and that we need to pretend that women don't have the capability to be responsible for what they have control over unless they have a magic do-over button.

Folks, when will the pesky left and civil libertarians get with the program? It's not about quality of life, it's about the fetishization of life.

Well, we can always turn sex into an unspeakable vice. Abstinence education, yeah! That's it... Mebbe forced ignorance will do the trick. That's the way we will win the war against abortion! Come on! Let's stick together on this! Are you with the program?!?!?!

"It's not about quality of life, it's about the fetishization of life."

Better to have a life fetish than a death fetish.

And what is with this "quality of life" thing? Huh? Please do tell me we're not going down the "better off dead" road yet again. Maybe it makes people feel better to frame abortion as a favor they're doing for the unborn. Doesn't make it true.

Victoria, you do realize that no matter what you think of abortion as birth control, most abortions take place as a form of birth control, yes?

Actually, if we must get technical (yes, we must), every abortion "controls" birth, that is, it prevents birth from happening.

It may not be contraception (preventing conception), but it is definitely always a form of birth control. Indeed, some forms of so-called contraception are not contraceptives at all, in that they do not prevent conception, but instead act after conception has taken place, i.e. they are an abortifacient, which are, of course, "birth control" as well.

Wrong comparison and a non-sequitur. The real contrast is between appreciation and fetishization. Not between life and death. Or more accurately, between life and the absence of it.

And what is with this "quality of life" thing? Huh? Please do tell me we're not going down the "better off dead" road yet again. Maybe it makes people feel better to frame abortion as a favor they're doing for the unborn. Doesn't make it true.

The unconceived do not have a right to decide whether being born would be a favor to them or not; They do not even have the requisite consciousness for determining such things. And neither do the just-barely-conceived-but-still-mentally-nonexistent.

first, I'd be shocked and secondly you'd realize not a single other commenter has brought up abstinence education but YOU.

This may come as a shock to you, madawaskan, but I can actually bring up things that others have not.

And if you actually read this thread - let alone read this blog more regularly - you'd find that it is almost entirely a set of aspersions and stereotypes cast of the left.

Given that, I see no reason why I can't take the aspersion offered by your friends here, the one that casts abortion as a form of birth control (cf Freeman and Synova), and build on their own false equivalence.

How far do they want to take this? Are they opposed to the morning-after pill? Is that "killing babies" and the fetishization of "death", or simply a way to prevent implantation?

I mean, if your buddies want to stereotype the cold, heartless lack of feeling of the left toward the warm, fuzzy, two-day old blastocyst, then can I not stereotype the ill-regard that all of you seem to show toward basic biology - let alone its inclusion in your "arguments"?

And finally, saying that the choice to not have children is made and forever sealed once one has decided to have sexual intercourse, is so laughable as to beg the self-ridicule that the abstinence-education promoters, with whom you've allied yourselves, provide.

I mean, the conservative assertion peddled here, of sex being risky enough to be primarily procreative in intention (rather than recreational), leads me to believe that conservatives are so bad in bed that the joke just writes itself.

Either that, or you need to redirect whatever sense of "danger"/excitement that you must feel your lovemaking needs but is somehow missing.